Clay shooting season gets under way with NC taking gold in FITASC Trap 1 clay target shooting championship
Stephnie Lendia seen in action during the competition.
Pictures:
Danie van der Lith
THE KIMBERLEY Clay Target Club recently held its first shooting competition for 2023 which as usual turned out to be a successful event.
The competition consisted of an ‘English Sporting’ and ‘Trap 1’ championship, which we will discuss in more detail soon.
Several provinces attended this two-day event to shoot it out and see who would be crowned the winner.
As always, the scorching
Northern Cape heat didn’t disappoint and challenged each shooter who competed.
Now, for those who do not know what these two shooting classes are all about, here is a quick description.
English Sporting: At the beginning of the 20th century, English sporting clays were invented. Since then, it has spread all over the world, and today it is the most popular type of clay shooting.
Clay targets provide a shooting environment that offers varied layouts and a constant challenge by providing shooters with a pattern that mimics the flight pattern of game birds.
Before the competition starts, the shooting range is set up with posts or racks where the shooter stands. Clays are hurled in pairs at each station, either simultaneously, on the set, or after, and often in groups of three to five pairs at each station.
The field consists of several habitats where 100 or more birds can be displayed.
Any type of clay can be used, and the course designer can vary the speed, angle, and distance to make the shot as exciting and challenging as possible.
Trap Shooting 1: This is a type of clay target shooting that was used back in the earlier days when live birds were released from a single caged trap. The six shooters in the squad take turns firing at targets that have been released from the trap while they stand in a line behind it.
At each stand, each shooter will eventually fire at five targets until they reach 25 targets. This is done four times until they have fired at 100 targets.
In the end, the competition saw some very good shooting by several shooters.
One such shooter was Kimberleybased Junior Colt shooter Fabio Lendia, who managed to shoot his first 10 shots without missing.
After all of the weekend shooting was done and dusted and scores were calculated, team Northern Cape raked in the Trap 1 title with a score of 745, while the Free State came out tops in the English Sporting category.
As always, the visitors congratulated the Northern Cape organisers for a well-prepared weekend and thanked them for the great shooting set-up that was presented to them.